The King is visited by the wise men
2
📚Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod 📖 the king, suddenly wise men 📖 from the east arrived in Jerusalem,2:1 Bethlehem was a small town about 8 kilometers south of Jerusalem. It was the home town of King David, and is referred to many times in the Old Testament (Gen 35:19; Ruth 1:19; 1 Sam 16:4; Micah 5:2). For Jesus to be born there Mary and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth (Luke 2:4), about 120 kilometers north of Bethlehem.⚜
2 📚saying, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him”.
2:2 It is evident that these magi had considerable knowledge of the Old Testament and its promises of a coming King who would be the Saviour of His people (Isa 9:6-7). Probably this knowledge came to them in Babylon during the time of Israel's captivity and the profound influence of Daniel and his friends. Remember, Daniel was made the chief of the wise men of his day. The magi could have calculated the general time of Christ's birth from the prophecy in Dan 9:25-27 (which had been given to Daniel in Babylon) and continued to believe in the One True God together with the Jews that remained with them in Persia. There is evidence that these "king makers" learned much from Daniel about the one true God, the God of Israel. Magi actually means "great (or powerful) ones," and indicates high position or influence. What we know is that they were truly wise as they were wise enough to seek Jesus. They were wise enough to seek information. They were wise enough to worship Jesus when they found Him.
We are not told what kind of “star” the magi saw or how they came to believe it announced the birth of Christ. The author of these notes believes that it was a heavenly body or other light in the sky specially created or given by God for this occasion. Its movement is evidence for this. It went due west, then due south for a few miles, and then stopped over a single house in Bethlehem, evidently low enough in the sky to indicate that particular house and not any other. No ordinary star or planet behaves like this. It is also reasonable to believe that God convinced these magi by His Spirit that this heavenly body was somehow connected with the birth of Christ. See note at v 12.
The magi did not come merely to see Christ, or to satisfy their curiosity, or to engage in philosophical discussion about Him. They came to bow lowly before Him, to honor and adore Him.⚜
3 📚When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
2:3 God had revealed a truth to the far-off magi which the king and people in Jerusalem, 8 kilometers from Bethlehem, did not know. The fact that they were alarmed instead of happy to hear this good news reveals their depraved spiritual condition. They were not ready for the coming of the Messiah, God's “anointed One”.⚜
4 📚And when he had gathered together all the chief priests and scribes 📖 of the people, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
2:4 Note on priests at Ex 28:1. The chief priests were in charge of the temple worship and were the religious leaders of the Jews.⚜
5 📚And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it has been written by the prophet:
6 📚And you, Bethlehem, in the land
of Judah,
are not the least among the princes
of Judah,
for out of you a Ruler will come
who will shepherd my people Israel”.
2:5-6 This wonderful prophecy, giving the exact place of Christ's birth about 700 years before the event, is found in Micah 5:2. Observe that these religious leaders and scholars knew that the Messiah would come and knew the place of His birth. But they made no effort, it seems, to find Him or to honor and worship Him. It is not what men know which makes them acceptable to God. The state of their hearts with their motives and desires is all-important.⚜
7 📚Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, found out from them the exact time the star appeared. 8 📚And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search carefully for the young child. And when you have found him, bring me word again, so that I too may come and worship him”.
2:8 Herod's purpose was evil (vs 13,16). But he, like many people since then, used a cloak of seeming piety to hide the wickedness of his heart.⚜
9 📚When they had heard the king, they went away, and now the star, which they had seen in the east, went before them until it came and stood 📖 over the place where the young child was. 10 📚When they saw the star, they rejoiced, with exceedingly great joy. 11 📚And when they came into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and prostrated themselves and worshipped 📖 him. And opening their treasures, they presented gifts to him: gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
2:11 The Lord Jesus was no longer in the stable where He had been born (Luke 2:7). Many months may have passed since His birth. Observe Whom they worshiped – not Mary the mother of Jesus, but the Lord Jesus Himself. And they brought their gifts to Him, not to her.⚜
12 📚And being warned by God in a dream 📖 that they should not return to Herod, they went away to their own country by another way.
The King in Egypt and Nazareth
13 📚And when they had left, suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up, take the young child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word 📖. For Herod will look for the young child to destroy him 📖”.
14 📚When he got up, he took the young child and his mother at night and left for Egypt. 15 📚And he was there until the death of Herod, so that there might be a fulfilment of what was spoken about the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I have called my son”.
16 📚Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent men out, and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all of its environs, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had found out accurately from the wise men.
2:16 This verse suggests that Jesus may have been many months old when the magi came. To make sure of killing Him Herod thought it necessary to kill all male babies up to the age of two.⚜
17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying,
18 📚“In Ramah a voice was heard,
lamentation, weeping,
and great mourning, Rachel weeping
for her children,
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more”.
2:18 Note at Jer 31:15.⚜
19 📚But when Herod was dead, suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 📚saying, “Get up and take the young child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child's life are dead”.
21 📚And he got up and took the young child and his mother, and came to the land of Israel. 22 📚But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And having been warned by God in a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee. 23 📚And he came and lived in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He will be called a Nazarene.
2:23 Nazareth was the town of Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:39). It was a small and insignificant town (John 1:45-46). A Nazarene was a person of Nazareth, so the name came to mean a person who was considered a nobody. Calling Jesus a Nazarene fulfilled the meaning of the prophets who revealed that Christ would be despised by men. See Ps 22:6; Isa 53:3. Some scholars connect the name “Nazarene” with the Hebrew word “netzer”, which means “Branch”. This was one of the names of the Messiah (Isa 11:1; etc). There is no connection between the words Nazarene and Nazirite. See note at Num 6:7-8.⚜